Organizing the Surveillance
- By Ralph C. Jensen
- Nov 03, 2014
The security industry is huge, and I often depend
upon others to send me leads and tips about
possible stories. This is the case with education
and security, as the two go hand-in-hand.
In this issue’s cover story, I was alerted to a recent install at the Garfield
Public Schools in New Jersey. Mary Wilbur, the vice president of
marketing at Salient Systems, brought to my attention an overhaul at
all 14 schools and two administrative sites.
What makes this story interesting is the fact that the schools worked
with Jim Kane, a consultant working exclusively with the National
Cooperative Purchasing Agreement. This agreement means a job is
spec’ed out, and already meets established criteria for purchase and
install of new equipment. The best part, Garfield schools will not only
save money, but they get best-of-breed equipment, too.
Garfield Public Schools has been searching for a more responsive
video with reduced bandwidth consumption. When all is said and
done, the schools will have installed more than 400 Sony IP networked
cameras and will be using Salient Systems VMS. More
intriguing is the VMS’ Dynamic Resolution Scaling (DRS) option.
According to Brian Carle, Salient’s director of product strategy, DRS
will scale the video to the server and to the screen that an authorized
person will be viewing. It will send only
the resolution that is necessary, keeping
bandwidth usage to a minimum.
I hope you enjoy our Campus Security
and Life Safety specialty publication.
There are a number of takeaways from
this issue, including helpful case
studies about campus emergency
notification stands (Sam
Shanes, Talkaphone) and
card-based identification
(Brett St. Pierre, HID Global).
Our other authors have
poured knowledge and
experience into their submissions,
which I’m sure
you will enjoy, as well.
We’re all in this
together, making the
campus a safer and more
secure environment.
This article originally appeared in the November 2014 issue of Security Today.
About the Author
Ralph C. Jensen is the Publisher of Security Today magazine.